J.B. Spins

Jazz, film, and improvised culture.

Monday, November 30, 2015

Orion: Who was that Masked Man?

Probably
nobody was more responsible for the Elvis Presley death hoax brouhaha than Gail
Brewer-Giorgio. She wrote the conspiracy book shrink-wrapped with a cassette
tape of the King supposedly explaining how he pulled it off that you might
remember from late television commercials. She also wrote an earlier novel
about good old boy rock icon Orion Eckley Darnell, who faked his death at the
height of his fame. It was intended to be a fantastical allegory, but the new
boss of Sun Records used it as a business plan. Jimmy Ellis was the aspiring
singer whose voice fit Orion’s mask. Ellis’s strange and sad career is
chronicled in Jeanie Finlay’s Orion: the
Man Who Would Be King (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Even
during his teenaged years, people were struck by how much the late Jimmy Ellis
sounded like Elvis Presley. That might sound like a blessing, but for a prospective
vocalist hoping to establish his own identity and career, it was more of a
curse. Nobody wanted to sign an Elvis sound-a-like, until Shelby Singleton, the
new owner of Sun Records and its storied catalog came across Brewer-Giorgio’s
novel, Orion.

Just
like the protagonist so clearly inspired by Presley, Singleton had Ellis
perform as “Orion Eckley Darnell.” Since he only looked Presley if you were
squinting like a bat in a spotlight, Ellis was required to wear a Lone Ranger
mask whenever appearing in public. They never really said he was Presley, but
there was a whole lot of winking and nudging going on. It was bizarrely successful
for a while, as far as Singleton was concerned. Yet, Ellis inevitably became
frustrated with the misplaced adulation and lack of proper recognition.

Finlay
makes viewers understand full well the sad irony that had there never been an
Elvis Presley, Jimmy Ellis could have been huge. He was not some cheesy Roger
Clinton southern fried freak show. Ellis always sang with feeling and could
croon a ballad with the best of them. Like Presley, he was attuned to many
forms of southern music, from rockabilly to gospel. There was just no getting
around that Elvis voice of his.

Ellis’s
story turns out to be even sadder than we expect, but Finlay’s treatment gives
him the respect and perspective he deserves. She engages in a bit of
speculation regarding the adopted Ellis’s birth parents, but it is convincing
enough to makes you wonder (but not about Elvis Aron, mind you). There is just
some really nice documentary-storytelling going on in Orion. Plus, if you dig Elvis, you will definitely groove to Ellis’s
spooky dead-ringer recordings.

It would be nice and altogether fitting if we
could start speculation Jimmy “Orion” Ellis faked his death to once again
pursue his musical dreams with a clean slate, but the senseless criminal nature
of his murder and that of his employee are simply not conducive to fun
conspiracy theories. Frankly, they both deserved far better. At least Finlay’s
documentary will foster an appreciation of his talent, under his own name,
which is not nothing. Highly recommended for fans of Presley, Orion, and old
school Sun Records, Orion: the Man Who
Would Be King opens this Friday (12/4) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Hitchcock/Truffaut: Auteur Interviews Auteur

Few
directors ever became a popular celebrity like Alfred Hitchcock. His imprimatur
and famous profile were used to brand books, magazines, and even a television
show. Yet, as bizarre as it seems to us today (with Vertigo recently eclipsing Citizen
Kane on the Sight & Sound critics
poll), in the early 1960s, Hitchcock was not widely hailed as an artist. The
exception was in France, particularly among Cahiers
du Cinema’s grubby circle of critics and filmmakers. That most definitely
included François Truffaut. He convinced the Master of Suspense to sit for an
epic eight day interview that would eventually be edited into of the most
treasured film books of all time. Kent Jones uses the fiftieth anniversary of
its publication as a springboard to celebrate the films it analyzes in Hitchcock/Truffaut (trailer here), which opens this
Wednesday in New York.

In
1962, Hitchcock only had a handful of films ahead of him, but that would
include iconic films like The Birds and
Marnie, as well as Frenzy, the late career masterwork the
public really missed the boat on in 1972. By this time, Hitchcock had completed
signature films like Vertigo that would
largely out of public circulation for decades. In the pre-video era, reading Hitchcock/Truffaut became the only way
to get a shot-by-shot sense of the master’s work.

In
case we doubt that fact, Jones enlists a relatively small but eminent cast of
filmmakers to explain how much the book has meant to them. Not surprisingly, many
are alumni of the New York Film Festival, including Martin Scorsese, who often
appears in filmmaking documentaries and David Fincher, who is considerably less
ubiquitous. There are no slouches in H/T,
but it seems a strange how little screen time Kiyoshi Kurosawa gets,
considering he is probably the closest to Hitchcock stylistically.

Frankly,
Jones’ wandering focus makes it tricky to nail down his precise intentions.
Although he incorporates considerable excerpts from the surviving audio tapes,
he is not solely concerned with the book and interview. There is some
background context provided for both titular filmmakers, but he clearly privileges
Hitchcock well above Truffaut. In fact, Jones does not even explore Truffaut’s
Hitchcockian films, like Mississippi Mermaidand The Bride Wore Black.
Rather, it often seems like Jones is content to follow the points raised by his
cast of filmmakers and the commentary of Hitchcock himself, in an almost freely associative manner. While that makes it hard to elevator-pitch H/T, its Hitchcock-centrism still makes
for fascinating viewing. Let’s be honest, most of us could happily listen to
the old master discuss the catering on Topaz.

Jones simply can’t go wrong with Hitchcock. Even
if we can’t precisely spell out the film’s thesis, it further buttresses our
general cineaste convictions that Hitch was one of the craftiest, wittiest
auteurs to ever look at the world through the lens of a camera. Abundantly watchable,
Hitchcock/Truffaut is highly
recommended for Hitchcock fans (and somewhat so for Truffaut and Nouvelle Vague
admirers as well) when it opens this Wednesday (12/2) in New York, at Film Forum.

MI-5--A.K.A. Spooks: the Greater Good

Harry
Pearce is about to become the James Jesus Angleton of MI-5. He is convinced
there is a mole deliberately sabotaging the intelligence agency. Unfortunately,
his efforts to expose the traitor might do even greater damage to British national
security. Decommissioned operative Will Holloway will be tasked with stopping
him. They have some complicated history that will get even thornier in Bharat Nalluri’s
MI-5 (trailer here), the feature
continuation of the MI-5/Spooks series,
which opens this Friday in New York.

Adem
Qasim is one of those smooth talking mass-murdering terrorists the media loves
to give a platform to. MI-5 had captured him, but he will escape during the
opening action sequence. This leaves the Americans (or the “Cousins” as Smiley
called us) somewhat perturbed and Pearce on the outs, since it happened under
his watch. Learning the escape was facilitated by a mysterious high level
command preventing air support, Pearce goes rogue to uncover the truth. It
seems he will even make a deal with Qasim, the Devil himself, to uncover the
high level turncoat.

Holloway
was maybe not such a great agent, but he knows Pearce. Reluctantly, the top
Tinkers, Tailors, and Soldiers bring him back to play Pearce’s game, but they
keep him on a short leash. At least they will try. Inevitably, Holloway’s
loyalties will be pulled in every which direction. Of course, there is also a
ticking clock, since Qasim is imminently planning a spectacularly bloody terror
attack.

In
the UK, the MI-5 feature was released
with the subtitle “the Greater Good,” which reverberates throughout the film,
but rises to a crescendo during the third act. Jonathan Brackley & Sam
Vincent’s screenplay makes it bracingly clear what sort of grim, difficult
choices counter-terrorist services must necessarily face. This is not a vocation
for timid or the simplistic. You can definitely see the influence of Smiley and
le Carré, but they stop of positing a moral equivalency between the spooks and
the terrorists.

In
fact, the MI-5 feature treatment is
surprisingly well written, taking several twisty turns in between some sharply
resonant dialogue. To paraphrase Tom Hanks in Charlie Wilson’s War, Kit Harington (John Snow in Game of Thrones) doesn’t look like much
of an action star as Holloway, but that is kind of the point. He is supposed to
be a misfit.

It hardly matters anyway. Peter Firth takes complete ownership of
the film, reprising his role as Pearce from the series. He brings a
Shakespearean element to the film not completely unlike Dame Judi Dench in the admittedly
superior Skyfall. It is a deliciously
Machiavellian anti-heroic turn. Eleanor Matsuura is also convincingly poised and
intelligent as relatively straight-shooting agent Hannah Santo. Returning Tim
McInnerny is aptly pompous as agency chief Oliver Mace, but he unleashes some
stone cold hardnosedness in the climatic showdown.

As a motion picture, MI-5 is almost entirely self-contained, requiring almost no
foreknowledge from viewers besides a rudimentary understanding of the current
geopolitical realities, which basically means anyone who doesn’t work in the
White House should be able to follow it. Yet despite the presence of several
new characters, it serves as a perfect capstone to the series. If you have
invested time in MI-5 or Spooks, you will appreciate where it
takes the remaining cast, while newcomers should find it a lithe and muscular
espionage thriller. Recommended pretty enthusiastically by straight-up movie
standards, MI-5 opens this Friday
(12/4) in New York, at the Village East.

The Sound of Redemption: the Frank Morgan Story

What
was someone as young and talented as jazz musician Grace Kelly doing in San
Quentin? She was playing in a unique tribute concert for Frank Morgan, her
late, great mentor. Morgan himself was always the first to admit he spent far
too much time incarcerated there, due to drugs and flawed decision-making.
However, Morgan finally left prison for good in 1985 just in time for a
mini-renaissance of interest in the old school bop tradition. N.C. Heiken’s
chronicles his tumultuous life and beautiful music in The Sound of Redemption: the Frank Morgan Story (trailer here), which opens this
Wednesday in New York.

In
a way, music was in Morgan’s blood. He was the son of Ink Spots member Stanley
Morgan, but that was a decidedly mixed blessing. Frank Morgan heard Charlie
Parker at a young age and was profoundly influenced by his music.
Unfortunately, he also developed a Bird-like heroin habit. Like most junkies,
Morgan resorted to crime to pay for his habit, but he was especially
industrious and/or reckless.

There
was indeed a time when people considered the sixteen piece San Quentin Warden’s
Band the best big band in California without any intended irony. For years, it
was Morgan’s only gig, but it was a steady one. Despite all his promise, Morgan
was nearly unknown beyond the circle of musicians who played with him when he
was literally just a kid, or had had their own stint in the San Quentin Band.

Man,
the 1980s were a good decade, especially for real deal jazz greats like Morgan.
However, Morgan’s third act not one of absolutely unalloyed triumphalism. In
fact, Heikin nicely tempers the inspirational with the darker backsliding
realities of life. Things were as they were, but the music remains.

At
the heart of the film is the rather remarkable concert featuring Morgan’s
friends and colleagues, performing the standards he was most associated with.
Even though we do not hear the man himself in these sequences, they have the
right spirit nonetheless. They are also very shrewdly edited. In one memorable
scene, we clearly see one resident audience member nodding along knowingly as
trombonist and master-of-ceremonies Delfeayo Marsalis explains just how much
Morgan lost as a result of his habit.

Heikin
is also wise enough to show Kelly’s absolutely devastating performance of
“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” in its uninterrupted entirety. Frankly, seeing her
in front of that rough-looking crowd will alarm a lot of us jazz fans who
remember her as the twelve year-old prodigy who exploded onto the scene (with
Morgan’s encouragement), but she is in her early twenties now. Regardless, her
rendition is exquisitely fitting. Morgan was inspired by Bird, but he had a
tender way with ballads that was more like an alto version of Dexter Gordon (a
former Central Avenue comrade).By
following up the chilling yet strangely elegant North Korean expose Kimjongiliawith her sensitive and
swinging portrait of Morgan, Heikin stakes a claim as possibly the best
documentarian working today. Her instincts are sharp and reliable, while her
aesthetic sensibilities are unerringly sophisticated. Executive produced by
hipper-than-you-knew mystery novelist Michael Connelly, Sound of Redemption does right by its subject, as well as his
fellow musicians (especially including Kelly, Marsalis, pianist George Cables,
legendary bassist Ron Carter, drummer Marvin “Smitty” Smith, and alto player
Mark Gross, who all gigged on the central prison concert, sounding fantastic).
A bittersweet treat, Sound of Redemption is
very highly recommended when it opens this Wednesday (12/2) at the IFC Center.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

YBCA Music Movies: We Like It Like That

Joe
Cuba & Jimmy Sabater penned one of the most infectious dance hits ever. It
is impossible to keep still while listening to their original recording of “Bang
Bang.” Dizzy Gillespie’s cover was just as groovy, but with more trumpet. Heck,
even David Sanborn’s cover is catchy. It was one of a handful of Latin
Boogaloos that defined a short-lived but still fondly remembered Latin music
craze. Matthew Ramirez Warren’s chronicles the music’s heyday and the musicians
that forged its funky trail in We Like It
Like That: the Story of Latin Boogaloo (trailer here), which screens
this week during the Music Movies series at the Yerba Buena Center for the
Arts.

In
the 1960s, you heard R&B and soul on the radio. For young musicians coming
up in neighborhoods like East Harlem, it was natural to integrate the sounds of
their generation with the Latin music they grew up with. Thus Latin Boogaloo
was born, more or less. More than anything, they had a groove.

There
were only a handful of really classic, influential boogaloos, like “Bang Bang,”
Pete Rodriguez’s “I Like it Like That,” Johnny Colon’s “Boogaloo Blues,” and
Joe Bataan’s “Gypsy Woman,” but they briefly spawned a host of followers. Many
Latin musicians were strongly encouraged record boogaloos. Some embraced them,
like Ray Barretto, whereas others were less enthusiastic, such as Larry Harlow (whose
presence as a respectful dissenter greatly enriches the film). Then, suddenly
around the time Fania Records really established its hegemony over the Latin
music industry, the boogaloo just seemed to vanish.

Warren
and the musicians he interviews do a great job of breaking down the process of
getting down with a boogaloo. Although many were self-taught or informally schooled,
it is clear everyone understands music at a very high level. Yet, the
documentary is never dry or technical.
Far from it. We Like grooves
just as hard as the music it surveys.

Calle
54 remains the greatest Latin music doc ever, due to
its elegant simplicity and the sheer virtuosity of the performances it
captures, but We Like still ranks way
up there. We are necessarily overusing derivations of the word “groove” because
that is what it is all about at its core. Indeed, Warren’s film is like a
party, except it also comes with a lesson in Twentieth Century music history. Great
nostalgic fun, We Like It Like That screens
this Thursday (12/3) and next Sunday (12/6) as part of Music Movies at the
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

Saturday, November 28, 2015

AFI’s EU Showcase ’15: Bridgend

These
Welsh teens ought to be happily working in coal mines and listening to Tom
Jones. Instead, they spend too much time in a creepy internet chatroom that may
or may not be encouraging them to take their own lives. Many have already. As a
result, their county has become internationally notorious as a so-called “suicide
cluster.” It is a very real, still unresolved tragedy that gets a fictional
work-up in Danish documentarian Jeppe Rønde’s English language narrative Bridgend (trailer here), which screens as
part of the AFI’s 2015 EU Film Showcase.

Dave
the copper has returned to his ancestral home of Bridgend with his moody
teenaged daughter Sara, despite knowing suicide runs rife amongst the young
adult population. There he will apparently be the only civil servant investigating
Wales’ most notorious string of untimely deaths. Hey, a gig’s a gig—and what’s
the worst that can happen? Despite her Englishness, Sara quickly falls in with
her fellow classmates, because they presumably have open spots for new mates.

It
does not take long for tragedy to strike anew, but she is shocked to hear it is
Thomas, the school’s bad boy with whom she had already developed a complicated
relationship. She soon falls back on her first choice, the ineffectual minister’s
son Jamie. He is a sensitive lad, who takes Thomas’s kid brother under his
wing, but he seems to know more about the suicide epidemic than he lets on.

Rønde’s
film is ill-conceived right from the start, largely since the Bridgend phenomenon
remains an open mystery. You can tell he is conflicted, laboring to find the
right tone and structure, vacillating between some sort of high-end genre
conspiracy yarn and a meditative examination of grief and alienation. Magnus
Nordenhof Jønck’s lush cinematography is stunningly evocative and Rønde has an
undeniably keen sense of visual composition, but the film suffers from an
initial, insurmountable credibility gap. You just can’t accept a single widower
father would knowingly move his angsty, overwrought daughter to a known suicide
cluster.

Problematically,
Game of Thrones’ Hannah Murray and
Josh O’Connor are both rather vanilla as Sara and Jamie. Frankly, the film
feels the lack of Scott Arthur’s Thomas and his visceral brooding rather acutely.
Elinor Crawley is also so charismatic as Sara’s welcoming new BFF Laurel, we necessarily
fear for her longevity in the film.

Bridgend
looks great, but it is impossible to know what
to make of it. Clearly, Rønde had no idea where to take it, especially since he
could not give it any sort of closure, per se. Instead, it is a strangely
accomplished exercise in flailing about, with no sense of direction. It is a
bold, potentially offensive failure that will probably gain cult defenders over
time. For the forewarned, it screens this Wednesday (12/2) as part of the AFI’s
EU Film Showcase.

Friday, November 27, 2015

Jaco: One Name Says It All

For
jazz, the 1970s were the best of times and the worst of times. Fusion super
groups like Weather Report and Return to Forever were selling out stadiums, but
great swing and bop musicians found themselves professionally marginalized.
Jaco Pastorius was a big part of that story. For bass players, he was the
story. Regardless of what you thought of Weather Report’s style, there was no
denying his ferocious technique. Sadly, he met a premature end, just like too
many other jazz legends before him. Paul Marchand & Stephen Kijak survey
Pastorius’s life and legacy in the simply but aptly titled Jaco(trailer
here),
which releases today on DVD with a full second disk of additional, high quality
interviews.

Early
in Jaco, Juan Alderete of the Mars
Volta refers to Pastorius as bass players’ “Hendrix” and it is easy to see why.
Pastorius even did his own solo rendition of “America the Beautiful”—on the
Fender bass. He is one of the few jazz musicians who is often referred to
solely by his first name, like Miles or Duke. Granted, Jaco is a somewhat
distinctive alternative to Jack or John Francis Pastorius, as he born, but he
truly made a name for himself taking jazz to its funkiest limits.

Pastorius’s
formative years were spent in Florida, where he picked up all forms of music,
including the rhythms he heard on Cuban radio. One of the cool things about Jaco the documentary is the credit it
gives to the Florida music scene at the time, including diverse artists like Anglo
R&B road warrior Wayne Cochran and Algerian-born jazz pianist Alex Darqui.
Just about everyone hired Pastorius, because he was that good. However,
Pastorius returned the favor, bringing a number of his FL colleagues up to New
York to play spots on his debut record for Epic.

Despite
his widely hailed debut, Pastorius’s popularity really exploded during his
stint with Weather Report. It was already one of the biggest super group before
he joined, but he took them to an unheard of level for jazz. Alphonso Johnson, Pastorius’s
predecessor in the band, is quite a gracious good sport talking about the
moment when he realized Joe Zawinul (the unofficial, first-among-equals
bandleader) had eyes to replace him with Jaco. However, some of the most honest
and revealing reminiscences come from drummer Peter Erskine, who joined shortly
after Pastorius.

In
fact, the interview segments throughout Jaco
are unusually insightful and often deeply personal. It must have been a
difficult process choosing what to include for the documentary, because there
is not a lot of filler in the supplementary DVD. In one case, Joni Mitchell
tells an anecdote that is more about Wayne Shorter than Pastorius, but Weather
Report fans should find it equally interesting. It is also nice to hear Al Di
Meola fondly remember time spent with Zawinul when his band was on tour with
Weather Report, because the Austrian keyboardist comes across as somewhat
mean-spirited in the doc proper.

In
many ways, Pastorius’s story is the oldest one of jazz. He had enormous talent,
but also terrible demons to wrestle with. Yet, it was not the drugs and mental
health problems that killed Pastorius, but a club owner named Luc Havan, who
served four excruciatingly long months for beating to death one of the most
innovative bassists of all time, or as Pastorius’ widow Ingrid observed: “one
month for each child he left fatherless.” However, Marchand & Kijak (perhaps
wisely) prefer to celebrate his gifts rather than to stoke resentment over his
untimely end.

If
you watch Jaco the documentary and
the additional footage, you will understand just how much Pastorius
revolutionized music. Jazz fans that still don’t appreciate Joni Mitchell might
finally start to get her after hearing how she related to musicians like
Pastorius and Shorter. Flea (from the Red Hot Chili Peppers) will also surprise
viewers with his jazz hipness, earning extra style points for the Thelonius
Monk t-shirt. Likewise, Metallica’s Robert Trujillo is just as eloquent
speaking of Pastorius and also helped bring the film together by serving as
producer.

Both disks comprehensively illuminate Pastorius
as an artist and a flawed human being, while further burnishing his reputation
as a musician beyond category. Very highly recommended, Jaco the two-DVD set is a terrific package that would make a good
Christmas gift for fusion fans.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

South of Hell: Eli Roth & Jason Blum Take on WE tv

When
it was founded, Charleston, South Carolina was open to all Protestant
denominations. It is also home to the oldest synagogue in the United States
that is still in regular use. On the darker flip side, a shadowy satanic cult
operated there not so very long ago. It was led by Maria and David Abascal’s
late but not nearly deceased enough father Enos. Recently, she has had strange
dreams and visions of the malevolent Enos Abascal. It is safe to say they had a
complicated relationship, considering he encased a demon within her. Maria
Abascal is mostly in control, but her relationship with the sulfurous Abigail is
necessarily complex. Still, she does her best to keep Abigail and her more
conventional inner demons at bay in South of Hell(promo
here),
which premieres binge-style with seven back-to-back episodes this Friday on WE
tv.

Created
by Eli Roth & Jason Blum and produced by Blumhouse Television, South is the show we never thought we
would see on WE tv, but here it is. Of course, it has a woman protagonist—or rather
two of them, played by Mena Suvari—which apparently counted for a lot. It also
has Charleston, providing an unending supply of atmosphere.

Given
the Jim Jones-ish notoriety of their father and the dangerous force sealed
inside Maria, the Abascal siblings have led a rootless life on the margins of
society. They mostly eke out a living as exorcists, but Maria is also a
part-time fortune teller, while David is a full time junkie. Thanks to Abigail,
they are quite effective when hired to expel evil spirits. Somehow, Abigail
developed a taste for eating her own demonic kind. Maria is able to harness
that power, but only just barely. Something sinister is afoot, but have perhaps
found an unlikely ally in the Reverend Elijah Bledsoe.

One
episode is hardly enough to support a conclusive judgement, but at least it
leaves viewers wanting more. Logically, it is also helmed by Roth to hook in
his fan base. He rather deftly plays up the sinister ambiance, suggesting much
that will presumably followed-up on later. Suvari has had an up-and-down career,
but she is really terrific as the disillusioned Abascal and the uber-vampy
Abigail. She generates some major heat in her scenes with herself. Although, we
only see him teasingly briefly, Bill “Old Hats” Irwin shows some serious
villainous potential as old man Abascal. David Abascal and Rev. Bledsoe are yet
to be fully developed, but Zachary Booth and Lamman Rucker seem well cast thus
far.

If you live in Los Angeles, you can make this a
demonic possession-themed Thanksgiving weekend by catching the ripping good
Korean film The Priestsat the CGV
and binge watching South of Hell.
Although it is too early to pass judgement on the entire series, the first
episode is definitely grabby enough to make you want to see the second, which
is a tad frustrating when it is all you have. Definitely worth trying (and
hopefully worth finishing), all seven episodes of South of Hell premiere tomorrow (11/27) on WE tv.

Submerged: Occupy the Limo, Underwater

The
Searles household limo is no James Bond vehicle. It might be well-fortified,
which will come in handy, but it also sinks like a stone, which will be a
problem. The intrepid family retainer-bodyguard-driver will have to think fast
to save his boss’s daughter in Steven C. Miller’s way-better-than-you-expect Submerged (trailer here), an IFC Midnight
release screening this weekend in New York.

Initially,
it looks like Matt is not doing such a great job protecting Jessie Searles, but
as we soon learn from flashbacks, he fought off a large contingent of armed
would-be kidnappers rather efficiently. He reasonably assumed she and her club
kid friends would be safe once they reached the new limo, considering it is
basically a tank with a wet bar. However, when the gang forces them off the
bridge, things quickly get dire. While battery power keeps the lights on, the
rest of the electrical system is kaput, freezing the doors and windows. Unless
they figure a way out, the undertow will drag them out to sea, where they are
likely to never be heard from again. Of course, the bad guys are also still out
there.

Despite
the frequent flashbacks (always a dangerous proposition), Submerged is a surprisingly lithe and economical thriller. Matt’s
Army Ranger background is a double blessing, making him a credible action
figure as well as a cool and collected (but not particularly talkative)
protagonist. His ambiguous relationship with Jessie Searles rather works in
context, but the backstory involving his kid brother’s suicide gets a little
melodramatic.

What
is really bold about Submerged is the
villains’ explicit class warfare rhetoric. Frankly, the limo might as well have
been attacked by Bernie Sanders. Matt’s boss Hank Searles is also refreshingly
positioned as a conscientious boss, forced to initiate a round of layoffs to
protect the rest of his employees and the community, but for the conspirators, that
is reason enough for him and his daughter to suffer and potentially die.

While
his restraint is appreciated, Jonathan Bennett’s Matt is almost too understated
for an action lead. However, Tim Daly (yes, from Wings) is quite charismatic and even compelling as the decent but naïve
Hank Searles. Mario Van Peebles also adds some vigor and attitude as the Q
behind the Searles limo.

Miller juggles the various revelations
relatively well and manages to make a film about six people trapped in a
sinking limo never feel stagey or narrowly focused. One of the better
commercially-conceived American thrillers released this year, Submerged screens round midnight tomorrow and Saturday (11/27, 11/28) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

The Priests: Father Kim and the 12th Assistant Deacon

Shamans
are all well and good for minor spirit infestation, but if you are facing a
5,000 year old arch-demon, you need to go to the Roman Catholic Church.
However, you can’t settle for skeptical, hip and modern priest in the Pope
Francis tradition. You need someone old school like Benedict XVI. It also helps
if he is a little ornery. Father Kim Bum-shin definitely fits the bill.
Unfortunately, he has trouble keeping assistants once they experience the long,
perilous exorcism of Lee Young-sin. Good will battle evil short-handed in Jang
Jae-hyun’s The Priests (trailer here), which opens this
Thanksgiving in Los Angeles.

Deacon
Choi Joon-ho is the twelfth assistant deacon sent to help the maverick Father
Kim in his epic mission. If that sounds vaguely familiar than perhaps you saw or
read about Jang’s award winning short film, 12th Assistant Deacon, which he remade and expanded as the feature length The Priests. It might be longer, but you
still will not find much padding here.

Lee
Young-sin was once a member of Father Kim’s congregation, but she is no longer
the innocent girl he knew. Frankly, the demon would prefer to possess a boy,
which is why it tried to force her into committing suicide. However, even in
her now vegetative state, Lee’s spirit is strong. Still, she is no match for
the beast within her. Nor were Father Kim’s previous eleven assistants. The
guilt-ridden Choi does not inspire much confidence either, but at least he was
born in the year of the tiger, which apparently counts for a lot when you’re
tangling with demons.

Jang
stays faithful to the essence of his massively atmospheric short film, while
expanding the scope rather effectively. The climatic exorcism remains the film’s
signature scene and it is still all kinds of tense. However, Jang has added one
wrinkle—the use of a pig as a temporary vessel for the exorcised spirits, in
accordance with the Biblical exorcism of the Gerasenes demoniac (a.k.a.
Legion). Presumably he had more budget available for animal wrangling this time
around.

Regardless,
The Priests is a gripping horror
thriller that treats themes of good, evil, Catholicism, possession, and sacrifice
with life-and-death seriousness. It is hard to top the original Exorcist from 1973, but the two films
definitely share a close kinship. Along with his prior short, The Priests suggests Jang could be the
next major genre filmmaker to emerge from Asia. Yes, they are that good.

Oddly
enough, the lesser known cast of the short film might just take the honors over
the famous stars of The Priests. As
always, Kim Yun-seok has a big presence as Father Kim, but at times his
uber-gruffness borders on the perverse. Likewise, Gang Dong-won’s Deacon Choi
is frustratingly callow and shallow before he gets his rude demonic wake-up
call. However, Park So-dam will scare the pants off you as the slightly
disturbed Lee Young-sin.

There is hardly any blood or gore in The Priests, because it runs deeper than
that. Jang masterfully controls the mood, steadily cranking up the suspense and
dread. He integrates a great deal Catholic imagery and demonic archetypes
alongside distinctly Korean elements, such as Father Kim’s shaman colleagues
(they are on refreshingly good terms). Altogether, it is a highly distinctive,
metaphysically unnerving horror film that will be perfect for family viewing
this Thanksgiving night. Enthusiastically recommended for genre fans, The Priests opens tomorrow (11/26) in
Los Angeles at the CGV Cinemas and next Friday (12/4) in New Jersey at the
Edgewater Multiplex.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Dead of Winter: the Donner Party—Weather can be Dramatic

History
has been unfair to the Donner Party. While they are often collectively referred
to as “notorious,” the Uruguayan soccer team’s 1973 plane crash in Andes is
considered an inspiring story of survival. Yet, both did similar things to stave
off starvation. While many factors hindered the Donner Party’s passage to
California, none were as punishing as the storms that left them snowbound on
the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Somewhat logically, The Weather Channel branches
out into original documentary production by chronicling and dramatically
recreating the ill-fated 1846 expedition in Doug Glover’s Dead of Winter: the Donner Party (promo here), which premieres
this Friday on the network.

Like
so many who came before and after them, the group that came to be known as the
Donner Party saw California as the land of opportunity. George Donner and James
F. Reed were relatively successful in Springfield, Illinois, but they were
convinced they could make substantially better lives for themselves with the
California land grants. Their company of covered wagons was eager to get there
as soon as possible, so they took a speculative shortcut called Hastings
Cutoff. Obviously, it was a disaster.

Those
who only know the Donner Party from its hazy reputation, might be surprised how
quickly circumstances turned desperate for the group of pioneers and how long
they resisted resorting to cannibalism. Arguably, their torturous crossing of
the Great Salt Lake Desert was just as grueling as the snowstorms on the Sierra
Nevada, but it came earlier in the trek, so it did not generate as drastic a
death toll.

Glover,
screenwriter Raymond Bridgers, and the assembled historical experts are all
good storytellers, who happen to be refreshingly forgiving of the Donner Party.
With a few terrible exceptions, the pioneers conducted themselves just as well
as the Uruguayan football players. Men like Donner, Reed, and diarist Patrick
Breen just wanted their children to have better lives than they did, but they
sacrificed horribly for the sake of their American dreams.

The quality of Dead of Winter’s historical commentary is considerably better than average,
while having Powers Boothe (Red Dawn and
24) as narrator gives the film some
seriously cool cred. The dramatic recreation cast also look period-appropriate
and eventually quite weathered and bedraggled. It is a well-produced documentary
that convincingly shifts the focus on the Donner party from the lurid details
of cannibalism to their harrowing exploits of heroism. You could almost say Dead of Winter is revisionist, in a good
way. Shrewdly, it is scheduled for the night after Thanksgiving (making turkey
leftovers look all kinds of appetizing). Recommended for history and weather
buffs, Dead of Winter: the Donner Party premieres
this Friday (11/27) on The Weather Channel.

Janis: Little Girl Blue

It
was a terrible one-two punch for rock & roll. Just sixteen days after the
death of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin also passed away. She was supposed to
record the vocals for Nick Gravenites’ “Buried Alive in the Blues” that day.
Instead, it was included on her posthumous album as an instrumental track. For
her songwriter friend, it was the cause of real heartbreak. It was also a bit
of a setback for Joplin herself, even though the album went platinum several
times over. Amy J. Berg chronicles the short, troubled life of the blues-rock
icon largely through her own words in Janis:
Little Girl Blue (trailer
here),
which opens this Friday in New York.

In
today’s texting world, it seems rather remarkable how often Joplin wrote
letters home to her parents and how forthright she was in her dispatches,
considering how drastically her values differed from her those of parents. Her
words are often heavy, in multiple ways. For a rebellious, musically inclined young
woman like Joplin, Port Arthur, Texas was a good town to be from—far from. For
a while, she felt somewhat more comfortable in Austin, but it was only San
Francisco that truly welcomed her. However, with that sense of belonging came
an introduction to hard drugs.

In
fact, her first stint in the City by the Bay did not work out so well, but when
she returned, she fell in with a band called Big Brother and the Holding
Company. They started to build quite a reputation, but it was Joplin that the
promoters and managers were really interested in.

Berg
talks to most of the surviving members of BBHC, as well as their contemporaries
like Bob Weir from the Dead, Kris Kristofferson, and Country Joe McDonald (but
strangely not Gravenites). Several speculate Joplin might have been happier and
healthier if she had not agreed to leave the band and take on the pressure of
leading her own band, with good reason. Frankly, if there is one thing Little Girl Blue has plenty of, its
regret.

Regardless,
the film works best when addressing Joplin’s music. Rather than present her as
an ecstatic blues shouter, Berg’s experts explain how she was learning to
master her voice like an instrument. The sequences involving the great lost
love of her life are also quite touching. However, the film gets downright
yucky when it suggests she had a sexual relationship with Dick Cavett, whose
coyness is truly nauseating. It makes you wish Joplin would rise from the dead
just to say it isn’t so.

Berg is an accomplished documentarian, but it
still must have been intimidating to interview DA Pennebaker. Yet, he is a big
part of the story (having made Monterey
Pop), so Berg duly gets the necessary first-hand accounts from the doc
trailblazer. All things considered, J:LGB
is a highly watchable survey of Joplin’s life and legacy, but as an American Masters production, it is sure
to turn up on PBS soon, so causal fans should be able to wait it out. Recommended
in theaters for hardcore Joplin fans, Janis:
Little Girl Blue opens this Friday (11/27) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Bolshoi Babylon: They’d Better Keep on Their Toes

During
the Cold War, America had jazz and the USSR had the Bolshoi Ballet. We won the
Cold War, but the Bolshoi still tours internationally, spreading Russian
prestige. However, backstage drama took a rather ugly and embarrassingly public
turn in early 2013 when Ballet Director Sergei Filin suffered a potentially
disfiguring acid attack. Instead of bringing the company together it
exacerbated pre-existing fissures, at least according to Nick Read’s Bolshoi Babylon (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.

Babylon starts with the
sort of tellingly ironic intro we always appreciate. According to one Bolshoi
insider, Russia has two internationally recognizable name brands: the
Kalashnikov and the Bolshoi, but the one-time market leading AK-47 has since
been eclipsed by other automatic rifles. That says a lot about Russia in
general. Unfortunately, Read and credited co-director Mark Franchetti are generally
more content to observe than to probe.

We
learn there was already deep discontent with Filin’s tenure as Ballet Director,
a post roughly analogous to artistic director. Soon, disgruntled Bolshoi dancer
Pavel Dmitrichenko is arrested for the crime and the company quickly divides
into opposing factions. Dmitrichenko, a Bolshoi legacy, makes no bones of his
resentment for Filin, specifically blaming him for sabotaging his girlfriend’s
career. For many, this criticism rings all too true.

Frustratingly,
Read shows no determination to get to the bottom of the controversy. Instead,
he periodically lets partisans from Team Sergei and Team Pavel vent. Much of Babylon proceeds like Frederick Wiseman’s
La Danse, offering us opportunities
to watch rehearsals and performances from the wings. That is not without
interest, especially for ballet connoisseurs, but it avoids the 800 pound gorilla
we hear is stalking through the halls of the Bolshoi Theater.

Frankly,
Babylon is a maddening missed
opportunity. We are told straight up, as the Bolshoi goes, so goes Russia. It
hardly seems coincidental corruption threatens to tarnish the storied ballet at
a time when the Putin regime has increasingly tightened its control at home and
launched belligerent military campaigns against its neighbors, but Read won’t
go there.

There
is some interesting stuff in Babylon,
but it feels rushed out and provisional. Clearly, the guts of this story
remains to be told. As a result, Babylon is
primarily for dance fans who want a peak behind the Bolshoi’s curtain than
serious geopolitical viewers looking for insight into the powerful and privileged
of Putin’s Russia. A disappointing and sometimes repetitive mixed bag, Bolshoi Babylon opens this Friday
(11/27) in New York, at the Cinema Village.

Unknown Welles: The Deep [Work Print]

Hopefully
Guy Maddin (who is scheduled to present a screening at MoMA this Tuesday) was
in town last night and able to attend the final Unknown Welles screening,
because it was the closest thing to seeing the sort of “ghost films” that have
inspired so much of his recent work. You could even say the surviving stitched-together
work prints had a spectral look not unlike Maddin’s films. Frustratingly, Orson
Welles never finished his adaptation of Charles Williams’ Dead Reckoning (later filmed by Phillip Noyce as Dead Calm), but you could get a vivid
sense of what it would have been like when the work print of Welles The Deep screened last night at MoMA as
part of the 2015 To Save and Project International Festival of Preservation’s
Unknown Welles sidebar.

No
Welles fan will be surprised to learn the negative for The Deep is now lost, as are a few scenes here and there. As per
his working method, most of the film audio was supposed to be dubbed in later,
but Welles hit a snag when his star Laurence Harvey passed away. Repeatedly,
Stefan Droessler of the Munich Filmmuseum stressed to the audience this was a
work print, struck from the negative on the cheapest, crummiest film stock available.
Its sole purpose was to serve as the vehicle for Welles’ editing mark-ups, which
he did in a manner guaranteed to maximize confusion for future film restorers.
You have to watch it with an eye for what could have been. Frankly, it is
probably helpful to have seen the extended teaser trailer Welles cut together
that screened with the fragments of The
Dreamers to understand the intended look and flow.

Unlike
Noyce’s Dead Calm, Welles is more
faithful to Williams’ novel, maintaining the original five character cast. It
starts in much the same fashion, with John and Rae Ingram becalmed in the
middle of the ocean, but not particularly concerned about it. The Saracen still
has auxiliary power, but being newlyweds they rather enjoy the time together in
the middle of nowhere. Much to their surprise a dinghy approaches carrying the
nearly dehydrated Hughie Warriner. He has come from the sinking yacht just now
drifting into view.

After
tending to the exhausted Warriner, Ingram rows over to the listing Orpheus to
investigate inconsistencies in the shipwreck’s story. Unfortunately, once he
reaches the sinking vessel, Warriner fires up the Saracen’s motor, abducting
his wife and leaving him stranded, but he is not alone though. Warriner’s beleaguered
wife Ruth and the Orpheus’s owner Russ Brewer were huddled below deck. Having
faith in his wife’s survival instincts, Ingram does his best to make the
Orpheus seaworthy. Although Brewer is not particularly helpful, he would also
like to catch up with Warriner, who murdered his wife (under circumstances that
remain rather murky).

Granted,
Welles still had a lot of tightening up to do on the work print, but you can
see the makings of a nifty thriller in there. It is obviously a crying shame The Deep was never completed and
released, for a number of reasons. It probably would have been regarded as a
rough equivalent of Touch of Evil.
Clearly, it also would have made great strides in establishing Oja Kodar as a
legitimate star in her own right, as Welles so desired. Today, only fans know
her as Welles’ just-what-was-she-again, but The
Deep would have been some sort of name for her. It is safe to say she is as
good as Nicole Kidman in Dead Calm—and
stills of her in her bikini and bright red sun hat would have been super
publicity-friendly.

The Deep also would have
burnished Harvey’s reputation. He was a big name in his day, but now he is
largely remembered for The Manchurian
Candidate, which had been largely withdrawn from public circulation until
its 1988 re-release. Hughie Warriner easily would have been his second iconic
role. Of course, Welles and Jeanne Moureau were no slouches either, as Brewer
and Ruth Warriner, respectively. There is comparatively less audio of Moureau
to extrapolate from, but Welles was deliciously caustic judging both from droll
overdubs and his corresponding facial expressions.

The
Deep is especially tantalizing
because it is so close to being finished, yet so far. It really could have been
a commercial hit for Welles. Maybe someday it still can. Regardless, it is a
treat to see it, even in a form in which it was never meant to be seen. An absolutely
fascinating viewing experience, The Deep was
a fitting conclusion to this year’s To Save and Project at MoMA.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Unknown Welles: Journey Into Fear [Preview Cut]

In
the Orson Welles’ filmography, this 1943 espionage thriller always has an
asterisk next to the title in fans’ minds. Throughout his life, Welles insisted
it was directed by his friend Norman Foster, except when discussing the scenes
he helmed. Thanks to the misadventure of It’s
All True, much of the daily directorial work was indeed left to Foster (who
would make a bit of a name for himself with some nifty little noirs), but the
Eric Ambler adaptation definitely bears the Welles stamp. Its ragged narrative
edges also reflect RKO’s desire to edit it down under seventy minutes. Oh, but there
were longer versions screened for preview audiences and European markets. The
intrepid Munich Filmmuseum tracked down the various cuts as well as the
shooting script to reconstruct a more coherent and surprising funny super-cut
of Foster’s Journey Into Fear, which screened
last night at MoMA as part of the 2015 To Save and Project International Festival of Preservation’s Unknown Welles sidebar.

It
is the early “Phony War” days of WWII, when Britain still expected to forge an
alliance with Turkey. It was therefore all fine and dandy that munitions expert
Howard Graham was in Istanbul working to rearm the Turkish navy. Graham and his
wife Stephanie are due to sail to Batumi (which really doesn’t make sense,
since the USSR was allied with Hitler at this time, but so be it), but they
will be waylaid by a convoluted conspiracy. Kopeikin, a corrupt representative
of Graham’s company drags him to a nightclub, ostensibly to meet the alluring
dancer Josette Martel. Through blind luck, Graham escapes an assassination
attempt that claims the life of magician Oo Lang Sang instead.

For
his own safety mind you, Colonel Haki of Turkish intelligence has Graham
whisked away on a dodgy tramp steamer, assuring the baffled American he will
personally see to his wife’s safety. In fact, one of the rediscovered scenes
suggests Haki does indeed give Ms. Graham some ambiguously special attention. (Let’s
not forget, Welles was quite the ladies’ man, who was once married to Rita
Hayworth. Plus, Haki’s fur hat looks smashing.) Meanwhile, Howard Graham is
spending quite a bit of time with Martel on that dodgy steamer, because she is
the only passenger he really doesn’t think is out to kill him.

Journey has always been an
entertaining yarn, but the more complete version makes considerably more sense.
Even though the Filmmuseum restoration team was again forced to resort to
intertitles in places, the reconstructed preview cut gives us a fuller sense of
the wit and irony of the script co-written by Welles and star Joseph Cotton. It
is rather delightfully mordant.

As
Graham, Cotton prefigures many of the classic everyman Hitchcokian protagonists
as well as his turn as Holly Martins in the even more classic The Third Man. He credibly portrays
Graham’s evolution from clueless passivity to resentful exasperation. While his
screen time as Haki is limited, Welles made the most of it. He was also clearly
feeling the power of the hat. Everett Sloane also adds some comedic noir flavor
as the dubious Kopeikin, while Dolores del Rio’s Martel brings plenty of femme
and a hint of fatale.

What RKO did to their Welles catalog makes you
want to pull your hair out. A longer, smoother cut could have become an iconic
film, much like Lady from Shanghai and
The Third Man. Even with intertitles,
the Filmmuseum version is the best way to see it, so hopefully it will be more
widely screened in the future. Of course, it is a perfect selection for To Save
and Project, which concludes its Unknown Welles sidebar tomorrow night at MoMA.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Unknown Welles: The Dreamers

When
in Split, Croatia, drop by the Joker Center shopping mall to see Oja Kodar’s
sculpture of her longtime life-partner, Orson Welles. In a cinematic sense,
Welles also put his collaborator and muse on pedestal in The Dreamers, his oblique and of course unfinished adaptation of
two Isak Dinesen short stories, which screened last night at MoMA as part of
the 2015 To Save and Project International Festival of Preservation’s Unknown
Welles sidebar.

Among
the program of maddeningly incomplete Wellesiana, The Dreamers best stands alone as a discrete film in its present
state. That said, Welles’ original trailer for F for Fake further advances the docu-hybrid’s meta jokes, while the
extended teaser for The Deep ought to
make Welles fans drool for the work-print screening on Sunday. Unfortunately,
the work-print screening of The Other
Side of the Wind scenes edited by Welles are distractingly rough and the
events they depict—a film shoot jeopardized by the abrupt departure of its star—are
spookily prescient of the fate that would befall the still unfinished film.

While
still somewhat fragmentary, The Dreamers manages
to end on a note that roughly approximates closure. It is a deceptively simple,
almost confessional film, focusing first on Welles playing a 19th
Century trader obsessed with the immortal Italian diva Pellegrina Leoni, whom
Kodar then portrays in more recent times. In their interpretation, she becomes
sort of a Flying Dutchman Norma Desmond. Although Welles and Kodar pitched the
film to number of big name stars, he clearly takes pleasure from Kodar’s
close-ups.

The
Dreamers is a talky film, but it is also
eerily intimate. Frankly, the Borgesian nature of the title story makes it a
hugely ambitious work to tackle, but even after all his set-backs, Orson Welles
was still all about thinking big. While it lacks the power and dazzle of The Merchant of Venice, The Dreamers is still worth seeing,
especially to get a glimpse of the exotic couple’s Los Angeles home. Any scrap
of Welles is recommended in principle, but The
Deep looks like a can’t-miss when the Unknown Welles sidebar continues this
weekend at MoMA.

Obayashi at the Japan Society: Sada

She
was sort of like the 1930s Japanese Fanny Hill and Lorena Bobbitt all rolled
into one. To say Sada Abe’s murder conviction became notorious would be an
understatement, given the nature of her surgical cuts. She inspired several
motion pictures, including Nagisa Oshima’s nearly equally notorious In the Realm of the Senses, featuring
unsimulated sex scenes. That might sound like a tough act to follow, but
Nobuhiko Obayashi’s distinctive aesthetics and deep empathy for Abe led to a
radically different cinematic take. Of course, there is still plenty of sex in
Obayashi’s Sada (trailer here), which screens
during the Japan Society’s Obayashi retrospective.

Abe’s
initial introduction to sex is not pleasant. A privileged student lures her to
an inn, where he “ravages” her, to use a more delicate, bodice-ripper turn.
However, some good comes with the bad when the innkeeper’s nephew Masaru Okada
comes to her aid. She immediately falls for the medical student, but he has
been consigned to a life of sequestration after contracting leprosy. Abe will
never see him again, but she will always chastely love him.

Unfortunately,
since Abe has been corrupted by the student, she resigns herself to working
first as a geisha and then as a prostitute, the latter being less hypocritical.
Still, she does not consider this a tragic fate since she genuinely enjoys the
work. Nevertheless, she nearly reinvents herself in respectable fashion, thanks
to the politically connected Sanosuke Tachibana. Intending to set her up in a
cozy restaurant of her own, Tachibana arranges an apprenticeship with the very
married Tatsuzo Kikumoto. Their subsequent affair will end badly for both
(especially Kikumoto), but at least the sex is great while it lasts.

Although
technically a period piece, Obayashi is not overly concerned with recreating vintage
1930s details. Instead, he is more concerned with enhancing and exaggerating
the Abe legend through wild flights of stylization. The film starts with a
fourth wall breaking Shakespearean prologue from Takiguchi, Abe’s
brother-in-law and sometimes pimp cautioning the audience to expect scandal,
while knowing full well that is what we came for. Obayashi frequently switches
from black-and-white to color and playfully adjusting his film speeds. Takiguchi
also pops up here and there to give more on-camera commentary and to engage in
some old school physical comedy, thereby re-establishing the carnivalesque
atmosphere.

Nevertheless,
Sada is often quite serious and
unremittingly frank when it comes to sex. In all likelihood, Sada just wouldn’t have worked without
Hitomi Kuroki’s unclassifiable lead performance. As Abe, she manages to be
naively innocent and ferociously seductive, simultaneously. She is in nearly
every scene and she commands each and every one of them. However, Kyusaku
Shimada is also bizarrely charismatic, in a rather sleazy way, as Takiguchi,
the pimp and master of ceremonies. He even scratches out some unexpectedly
touching moments during the long denouement.

In
many ways, Sada feels like a
precursor to Tetsuya Nakashima’s Memories of Matsuko, except it is less acutely tragic. Both are sweeping tales of
corrupting sex and a yearning for redemptive love. Yet, one of the cool things
about Obayashi’s take is Abe’s refusal to be a victim, despite being victimized
(and arguably psychologically scarred) by men. There are plenty of reasons why
it might put off conventional viewers, but the adventurous will find it
fascinating and maybe even cathartic. Recommended for fans of intense auteurs
like Oshima, Nakashima and of course Obayashi, Sada screens tomorrow (11/22) as part of the Obayashi retrospective
at the Japan Society in New York.

Friday, November 20, 2015

RIDM ’15: The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Maddin

Making
a film about Guy Maddin is an intimidating prospect. There is no way you can
get away with conventional talking heads when profiling arguably the most
distinctive stylist in world cinema today. Fortunately, Yves Montmayeur
recognized the challenge and brought his A-game for The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Maddin (trailer here), which screens
today as part of the 2015 RIDM: Montreal International Documentary Festival.

Before
going any further, fans should be duly reassured Udo Kier most definitely
appears in 1,000 Eyes. It wouldn’t be
a Maddin film without him. As the documentary opens, he and Geraldine Chaplin
are participating in Maddin’s séance performance art-installation piece at the
Pompidou Center. They are trying to raise the spirits of aborted films that
were never produced. Maddin’s persistent fascination with films that never were
has proved a rich vein for him to mine, also partly inspiring the mind-blowing The Forbidden Room.

Somewhat
surprisingly, Montmayeur has a clear affinity for the more macabre aspects of
Maddin’s films, which is not how most of his fans typically think of the
surrealist. However, he also explores Maddin’s playfully transgressive sexual themes,
which are always hard to lose sight of. Throughout the doc, Montmayeur shrewdly
selects film clips for illustrative purposes. However, the auteur’s admirers
will really respect the way Montmayeur manages to blend his documentary footage
together with Maddin’s films and imagery in accordance the spirit of his
subject’s visions. Maddin is also unceasingly helpful, talking seriously about
his work, while maintaining a self-deprecating sense of humor. Maddin
semi-regular Isabella Rossellini adds some star power, while John Waters and
Kenneth Anger further bolster its cult appeal.

Although far from an exhaustive survey,
Montmayeur paints a robust portrait of the filmmaker and the tone and motifs of
his work. Maddin’s films are bizarrely seductive. Despite their often
intentional fakeness, they somehow feel like a very real alternate reality. If
you watch My Winnipeg, you will be
convinced every strange and absurd story really happened in his Manitoba
hometown. Montmayeur conveys a sense of the trippy, intoxicating power his best
films have, which is quite an accomplishment. Running an economic sixty-five
minutes, it delves reasonably deeply into the Maddin aesthetic without belaboring
its points or repeating itself. Recommended for Maddin and Kier fans, The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Maddin screens
today (11/20) and Sunday (11/22), as part of this year’s RIDM in Montreal.

Unknown Welles: The Merchant of Venice

Orson
Welles was one of the few theater and film directors who was not afraid to
tinker with Shakespeare’s texts. It must have been the confidence that came
from being a prodigy. He would therefore be the logical person to adapt and
helm a “Reader’s Digest”version of Shakespeare, but he still
went way over-budget on his 1969 television production of The Merchant of Venice, forcing CBS to walk away and cut their
losses. Long considered lost and unfinished, Welles’ version has been restored
and pieced together from disparate sources by the Munich Filmmuseum. The
remarkably coherent and satisfyingly Wellesian Merchant of Venice screened last night at MoMA as part of the 2015 To Save and Project International Festival of Preservation’s Unknown Welles
sidebar.

As
part of a full presentation on Welles in a Shakespearean bag, Filmmuseum
director Stefan Droessler also screened a number of interview segments,
television guest appearances, and fragments that never really went anywhere,
but still involved Shakespeare. It is probably safe to say Welles is the only
actor to perform Shakespeare on the Dean
Martin Show, Ed Sullivan Show, and I
Love Lucy. Nevertheless, Welles’ Shylock was the centerpiece.

Indeed,
Welles unambiguously molds Merchant into
Shylock’s story. There is only one brief cutaway to Belmont, with the rest was
set in glorious Venice, conveniently starring Welles himself as the despised
money-lender. Aside from a rather jaunty opening, in which Welles triumphantly
returns to Venice (where he also shot Othello)
lounging in a gondola, the film is probably the closest in tone to Welles’ The Trial. The entire city seems to be
conspiring against Shylock, while wearing sinister carnival masks that weirdly
bring to mind Eyes Wide Shut.

Naturally,
Welles lost part of the audio track and the negatives, so the Filmmuseum restoration
team frequently relied on a 1938 Mercury Theater production initially released
as an enormous multi-record set in the days before LPs to fill in audio gaps.
Believe it or not, it is not as jarring as it sounds. Unfortunately, they had
to resort to inter-titles in occasional spots, but never during a critical dramatic
moment. Most importantly, Merchant reflects
Welles’ unmistakable sense of visual composition. Even when working in color he
creates some starkly striking images.

The
Filmmuseum’s restoration recently premiered at this year’s Venice International
Film Festival, but it is strange it was not immediately snapped up by someone.
Welles’ performance is as strong in Merchant
as in any of his later works and his signature style remained undiminished.
In this case, the cobbled together restoration should further burnish his
reputation. It is too good to simply return to the vault, so Welles fans should
keep an eye for it. It was also a great way to kick-off the Unknown Welles
sidebar, which continues through Sunday (11/22) at MoMA.

J.B. Spins

About Me

J.B. (Joe Bendel) works in the book publishing industry, and also teaches jazz survey courses at NYU's School of Continuing and Professional Studies. He has written jazz articles for publications which would be appalled by his political affiliation. He also coordinated instrument donations for displaced musicians on a volunteer basis for the Jazz Foundation of America during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Send e-mail to: jb.feedback "at" yahoo "dot" com.